


New Age Hipster Superheroes

by angelgazing



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere along the line—and Kurt will go to his grave swearing he doesn't remember where—somewhere between slushie facials, locker room taunts, all night study sessions, and the fourth time Kurt jumped out of a plane with Puck by his side, Kurt started to get used to having Puck at his back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Age Hipster Superheroes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://princess-mir.livejournal.com/profile)[**princess_mir**](http://princess-mir.livejournal.com/) for [this prompt](http://angelgazing.livejournal.com/244355.html?thread=1231491#t1231491). I, um, sort of failed to make it even half as cracked-out as I had intended. Many, many, many thanks to [](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/profile)[**musesfool**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/) for suffering through two days of "why won't this _work_," and helping me make it work. ♥♥

  
Puck is the muscle. He's been the muscle since high school. He let his guns define him from the moment he'd developed them. Puck is broad, and brash, and intimidating.  
The phenomenon of parting students in an overcrowded high school hallway has only been amplified as time has passed. When Puck walks down the street—any street without NFL linebacker also vying for sidewalk space—people part. They make way for his shoulders and his swagger.  
Somewhere along the line—and Kurt will go to his grave swearing he doesn't remember where—somewhere between slushie facials, locker room taunts, all night study sessions, and the fourth time Kurt jumped out of a plane with Puck by his side, Kurt started to get used to having all that muscle at his back.  
He got used to having Puck at his back, never more than a press of the panic button away.

"I don't know what you're worried about," Puck scoffs, like he's some sort of freaky mind reader. Which Kurt knows for absolutely certain he is not. Puck would spend way more time shoving his hand down Kurt's pants in random, inconvenient, semi-public places if he had half an idea how much time Kurt spent thinking he should do just that. They'd never get a job done, and be laughed out of the organization, but by god, they'd be happy.

Puck also doesn't have the decency to act like it hurts when Kurt cuffs the side of his head.

Whatever. Kurt isn't actively _trying_ to hurt him. He's just a little frustrated at himself for frowning, and wearing a brown belt with black shoes, and letting himself get used to the way things were. "Stop talking or I'm going to tie you to this chair and pluck your eyebrows," he says, instead of any of his other completely valid complaints about this sudden twist in his workplace environment. "It's not like I signed up for this job expecting stability," he adds, and if Puck is perceptive enough to get that Kurt isn't really telling him, he's kind enough not to say it.

If he could drink a bottle of vinegar and find it less bitter than his tone, well, he's certainly not going to call _himself_ on it. And Puck wouldn't dare. Mostly because Kurt can name seventy-four ways to kill him and make it look like an accident before he even has to start getting creative. And at least thirty-one of those don't leave enough of Puck for his mother to bury.

After all, accidental deaths are his specialty.

As far as techniques to inspire fidelity go, it's second to none.

But the old saying isn't true, because they never really are. The way to a man's heart isn't through his stomach--it's through _adventure_. It wasn't realistic to assume that Puck would spend the rest of his career in the back of an unmarked van, or permanently tied to his cell phone, and basically never more than 50 yards in any direction from where Kurt was working, with his brick wall of a body and a loaded .45. But Kurt had spent two years of high school being thrown into dumpsters. He was a gay kid from Lima, Ohio, who had maybe gotten drunk one night after running drills in Canada and sort of married the guy who used to bully him before they'd even started dating. He had more aliases than he did accessories, and a weapons collection that would make Tony Stark weep with envy. Realistic expectations were not one of the things he'd dealt with most in life.

"Do you remember your cover?" Kurt asks, because silence has never been one of his favorite things. It's a stupid question; the cover is almost insultingly uncomplicated. Puck raises an eyebrow, and Kurt pushes it back down with the pad of his thumb and a frown.

There's no need for dramatics. No wigs, or terrible Nicole Kidman noses, or fake prison tattoos that Kurt could painstakingly paint on. He straddles Puck's lap anyway, his weight across Puck's thighs as—though it pains him more than words could ever really say—he slowly brushes a thin sheen of oil down the bridge of Puck's nose and across his forehead. He follows the brush with his fingertips, just to make it more natural and better blended, and he'd swear to that in a court of law should the need ever arise.

Puck grips his hips, and doesn't even pretend to worry about the fact that he's wrinkling Kurt's pants. His thumb hooks under the belt Kurt's got on, and Kurt leans back blindly to put the oil on the table behind him, not worried about falling, because Puck would never let him. He breathes deep to match Puck. They've done this a thousand times before.

Kurt's wearing Puck's discarded navy blue suit jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It's ridiculously large in the shoulders, and it only serves to make him look like a kid playing dress up. It smells like the cologne Puck wears when he thinks it's going to be a good day. It hides the gun tucked into his waistband well though, keeps Puck's cell tucked close to his heart should anything go wrong.

They've never done it quiet like this.

"You make a terrible Lois Lane in that outfit," Puck tells him. His voice is level and soft, but his fingers clench just a little tighter on Kurt's hips, like a hiccup. Involuntary muscle movement. He gives the ceiling tiles the hairy eyeball, and does some yoga breathing exercises that usually have to be forced on him. "My eyebrows are _awesome_, by the way." He raises one, as if trying to show the proof to the ceiling.

There's someone else waiting in a van down the road, another secure cell clenched in his fist. He's even a vet of the game, of waiting on the edge for hours. Kurt's good at what he does, he's only had to press that button twice in the last four and a half years, but they aren't going to take any chances.

"Your eyebrows are a travesty," Kurt answers, raising one of his own.

Puck keeps his hair a little longer now, and it's obviously been more than a few weeks since he's had it trimmed, so he's walking that fine line between legitimate hairstyle and Justin Timberlake circa his boy band days. Kurt combs it forward with his fingers; the residual oil on his fingertips and the gel he'd attacked with that morning making it lie flat across Puck's forehead. He tugs on Puck's hair until Puck looks at him, and pulls on his many, many years of acting experience to fake a smile.

He knows that Puck knows that he knows that Puck doesn't buy it for a second, but before they can fall into a vicious cycle of worry and doubt, Puck bucks his hips up. "You don't gotta pretend to want to do bad things to me to get in my lap, you know."

"I don't have to pretend I want to do bad things to you," Kurt replies on autopilot, his voice dry. These conversations they can have. This is the kind of thing they're used to. He scratches the shell of Puck's ear with his thumbnail, just lightly and barely there, just the way that makes Puck shiver every single time, before he removes the small stud there. They don't say the important things.

"Your target is Jaclyn Boutros." Kurt tips Puck's chin up again, pressed his index finger against the place where he'd nicked himself shaving this morning. He grabs fistfuls of the Spider-Man t-shirt Puck is wearing at his shoulders, his chest, over his belly, and one corner of his mouth twists upward at the wrinkles. Kurt practically had to wrestle him into that shirt. It was oversized, to downplay the size of Puck's arms. "You've seen the pictures."

Puck looks scared, his eyes wider than usual, and every breath still just a little deeper. It works for the cover, and Kurt shouldn't, but he tries to be calming anyway. Unexpected turn in the job or not, it's still a job and they've got to get it done. "It'll be a cakewalk for you," he says, still smiling slightly. He twists the silver band around Puck's finger once before he takes it off and tucks it in next to the cell in his pocket. There's still a ring where his skin is lighter, but there's not much they can do for that. She probably won't bother looking anyway. "All you've got to do is get her to room 509 of the Regency."

"And lose her security team, the hotel security team, the tail her husband has put on her, and try not to be seen by the cameras or any witnesses." Puck nods, like he isn't freaking out. Kurt smiles and means it.

"Cakewalk," Kurt says, with a wave of his fingers. "Remember that thing in Belize?"

Puck laughs, his fingers back on Kurt's hips. He bounces his leg just to put Kurt off his balance—just to be a dick. "And how many of my problems are you going to be trying to take care of, instead of getting your shit done?"

"It's called teamwork for a reason." They both choose to ignore that they've never really worked with a team. Life is less stressful when you only have to watch one person's back at a time. Kurt goes back to grabbing Puck's shirt in his fists. He isn't ready to give up his perch. "If _anything_ goes wrong," he says, to the screen-printed spider that rests just above where Puck's nipple ring had been. He doesn't finish the thought, but he knows he doesn't have to.

"I want my gun," Puck tells him, sounding resigned. He's getting a wallet complete with fake ID, thirteen bucks, and a company credit card; a cell phone with one number programmed in it; a keycard for the hotel room; and his high school experience in MILF chasing. They're breaking the rules with the phone. It's supposed to call the guy in the van. He presses his fingertips to the thin white line on Kurt's cheekbone, to Kurt's bicep and the slight pucker of skin he can find through three layers of clothing.

Kurt slides off of his lap before he can try to reciprocate. It would take far longer than they have. He doesn't get far though, Puck grabs his wrist, and reels him back in to stand between his strong, denim-clad thighs, and breaks script by saying: "If _you_ run into—I don't care what the plan is, or what the job is, or what I'm supposed to do, okay. Do you understand me?"

And Kurt—Kurt really does. He huffs a laugh, rolls his eyes, and presses a kiss to the top of Puck's stupid hair. There are some rules he isn't willing to break. They're both like sports sarts on game day, in their own ways. Puck wears his four-leaf clover boxers, and Kurt has to have something waiting for him on the other side. Something for goodnight, not for good luck.

He hands Puck a pair of Chuck Taylors, dirty and well-worn, and even though Puck hasn't even seen a pair since sometime between graduation day and Kurt helping him pack up his dorm room, they fit like they were made for him. Kurt sighs, deeply, like he's _pained_, and slips to his knees to tie the frayed laces.

There's not much to do after that, and the clock is ticking anyway. Daylight is wasting. Other stupid clichés that mean they can't just stand here forever, when they've got things to do. When he gets to his feet, he does so reluctantly.

Puck stands and automatically shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders. It's so far removed from Puck that Kurt has no choice but to smile again. His hair is slicked forward, his earring is missing, his face looks greasy, and he's dressed like every third sixteen-year-old on the street with his wrinkled comic book t-shirt and loose fitting jeans.

"I mean it, you know," Puck says, softly, as Kurt puts a pair of thick-framed glasses on him, perching them carefully on Puck's nose. The frames are oversized, and not just a little bit ridiculous. You can't fault the classics. Kurt nods, but not to himself.

"How do I look?" Puck asks, his shoulders curling in even further, and his stupid eyebrow raised.

"Like you're doomed to spend your life as Clark Kent." Kurt squeezes his fingers, just once. He breathes out slowly through his nose, his eyes closed. He counts to five before he opens his eyes again. There are a lot of things he wants to say: _break a leg_, or _if you get yourself killed I'm bringing you back to life just to murder you myself_, or _you look best on lazy mornings, wearing nothing but the rumbled sheets and a smile_.

Puck pushes Kurt's sleeves up from where they've slipped down, and saves Kurt from all the words tripping over each other on his tongue by saying, "We should go back to Belize in the morning. It's time for a change of scenery for a while."

Before Kurt can respond, Puck leaves the room and doesn't even glance behind him. Kurt watches his back.  



End file.
